


Trite Clichés and Wishful Thinking

by Diary



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, Bechdel Test Fail, Changing Tenses, Disturbing Themes, Gen, Introspection, M/M, POV Male Character, POV Near, POV Queer Character, Self-Reflection, Stream of Consciousness, Unrequited Love, Unrequited Mello/Near - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-08-11 17:38:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7901698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diary/pseuds/Diary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Near reflects on psychology, physical appearances, and Mello's rivalry towards him. Complete.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trite Clichés and Wishful Thinking

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Death Note.

Near’s never had much use for psychology.

He’s filled to the brim with questions about people and why they do and don’t do certain things, but he rarely finds the answers other give to be acceptable.

Mainly, he finds the idea physical appearance and characteristics are unimportant or minimal to be patently ridiculous. The ones who sprout such trite clichés do no one, not the insecure, not the confident, not even the mostly indifferent, any good.

Red hair, redheads, gingers, they’re soulless, they’re kings and queens and misogynist murderers producing female saviours, they’re exotic, they’re cute, they’re fake, they’re connected to the earth, and they’re boundless.

Matt is harmless but not, a child who travels mentally through metadata. Everyone neatly likes to label Near as asexual, because, it makes everyone else more comfortable and secure, and he’s never denied he’s used his looks and personality traits to influence others, but the truth is, Matt is more asexual than Near will ever be. Matt can’t sleep soundly, sometimes, he can’t even fall asleep, without a warm, breathing body next to him, but no child or stranger is ever in any danger from anything more than possibly having their sheet or blanket stolen in his bed.

No, the danger is, he’ll pay for the body with his skills. Hack a rocket, muck with some alphabet agencies’ records, download endless books, movies, and music, fine, just give him a computer, enough stimulants to keep him awake, and be there when he’s ready to crash and sleep.

He’s fiery red but, at most, he’ll get irritated and lock someone out of their mobile for a few hours until he’ll get bored and can be bribed into unlocking it.

Mello, though, Mello is strawberry-blond, and he’s petty and unforgiving and, once, the bringer of everything he considered righteous. No boys from a nearby public school were stupid enough to touch any Wammy, not even Near, and he grimly watched when rapists were executed, and he once fed communion wafers to nearby ducks because a little kid was crying about how they were so hungry.

Freckles used to be a mark of shame, a sign of evil, an indication of ill-health, an indication of mixed-race, a sign of exoticism. Now, they’re cute and sweet and innocent.

Matt effortlessly had a face and body full of soft, brown freckles during the summer, but Mello, Mello had a scattering of freckles, and they only appeared after he’d spent days playing footie in the hot sun or trailing after someone to shoot dead, hiding in shadowy corners while the sun beat hot.

Scars can be anything from something reviled to a mark of boasting. Recently, some have turned them into something some people simply have, nothing particularly remarkable or unremarkable.

Even before Mello was scarred across the face, he had several scars. On his left foot from accidentally stepping on a nail, a thin, almost non-existent one above his left eye from when a cabinet he was trying to open hit him, a small one from having his appendix removed, possibly more Near has never been privy to.

Matt, he didn’t mean much, Near correctly catalogued him as unimportant, a short, skinny, freckly boy with ragmop, red hair, face full of freckles, green eyes staring intently at computer and TV and mobile screens. He was cute, in America, he would have been called all-American, no would ever mistake him for royalty, he’d probably die too young.

Unimportant or not, Near really wished he were wrong about the last one.

Oh, but Mello, he was all knobbly knees, shimmering hair, blue-green eyes with chocolate smeared across his lightly freckled face, and he laughed too loud, talked and talked, and literally growled when pushed. He’d grow into a graceful body, master the psychology Near has little use for, entice people, even those not usually attracted to men, gain trust, gain fear, solve puzzles Near himself shied away from.

See me, Mello, and you’ll have no trouble becoming L, he almost said in the past.

Sometimes, he regrets not.

Of course, the small, colourless boy who can’t handle much stimulation is going to be drawn to the deliberately overstimulating. Near can learn a new language in ten minutes, can read code just as well as Matt could, provided it’s on the right shade of white paper in the right font, he even knows the basics of handling certain weapons, but he can’t cause actual warmth inside people with his smile, he can get most people to open up but not because they want to, because he made them feel safe or excited, he can’t deliberately make people laugh.

Moreover, of course, he wanted to see if he could make Mello sigh and gasp, and perhaps, even beg. He wanted to let Mello do all these things to him. He wanted to listen to Mello’s endless talking, his unrestrained laughing, see him manipulate people like puppets, both for benevolent and malicious reasons. He wanted to hear the inner thoughts no one, not even Matt, was privy to. He wanted- well, he didn’t exactly want to, but he would have eventually shared his own.

He’s sure accepted psychology could explain why he never tried harder, but he doesn’t need it to. He doesn’t need it to tell him how to stop feeling, irrationally, as if there’s an actual gaping hole in his heart.

He’s just a patently ridiculous little boy who will die too young, and all the clichés and wishful thinking in the world won’t change this.    


End file.
